Sushi floated in the air, looking back and forth between Rali and me like a little kid who didn’t understand why her parents were fighting and didn’t know who it was safe to go to.
Warcry snapped his fingers and gave her a sharp gesture. She darted behind his shoulder and hid.
“Every greedy, misguided person who wants to cram everyone into their idea of what a cultivator should be and want and do.” Rali’s walking stick gritted in the pebbly sand as he waved the top at “their” imagined faces. “They see a Death Spirit, so they say you should be killing everything that moves. They don’t want you to have a conscience or find a better way, they just want mindless slaughter.”
“This time there is no better way,” I snapped.
“And every time you tell yourself that, you’ll believe it a little more!”
“Oi, lads.” Warcry stepped between Rali and me. “Stuff the lovers’ quarrel before you bring the whole Technol army down on our heads, will ya? You’re scaring the fishstick.”
Sushi peeked over his shoulder at us, her mismatched eyes big and worried.
It took some effort, but I swallowed the argument I had in the chamber. Rali and I would have plenty of time to get this crap out of our systems after Sanya had been dealt with, sometime when Sushi wasn’t around to hear us.
Rali didn’t look any happier about the interruption than I felt. He glared out across the tops of the boulders, breathing slowly like he was trying to calm himself down.
“So, what’s your plan?” he asked in a cold voice.
“Like you said.” Warcry shrugged. “Kill her and take back the artifact.”
“Is it even possible to kill a Ketsu-level cultivator?” I asked before Rali could get going again.
“Just ’coz they’re advanced don’t make ’em invincible, grav,” Warcry said. “If we surprise her, we might manage it.”
“Unless she’s already using the bracelet,” I said. “Then she might actually be invincible.”
Warcry grunted. “If she’s already using it, we’re proper bled anyway. No use agonizing over it now.”
“Guess not.” I looked toward the encampment, then at Rali. “Where’s Kest? Her guard shift should be over by now, shouldn’t it?” It was already early morning. In an hour or two, the sun would come up.
A little of the icy anger in Rali’s expression melted at the subject change.
He pointed at my HUD. “Message her ‘I miss caramel mochi cooked over a fire.’ It’s our code for when I want to talk to her out by the river, where we won’t be surrounded by Technols.”
I sent the message. A minute passed, which I imagined was Kest processing her surprise at me using Rali’s code, then realizing what it must mean.
My Winchester buzzed with her reply: And soba with fresh creek carp.
“That means she got hung up, probably talking to her senior, and she’ll get away as soon as she can,” Rali said. “Tell her you know, and Sage Rali’s the best cook.”
That cracked the last of the ice between us. I grinned at him.
“What’s that code for?”
“Not everything’s a code, Hake,” he said, crossing his arms and planting them on top of his walking stick. “Some things are just immutable facts.”
The Gang’s All Here
WHILE WE WAITED AND watched the camp, Warcry and I rested and Rali caught us up on everything that had been going on since we split ways. He hadn’t paid much attention to the construction, ruins searching, or anything the Technols or his sister had been doing on the clifftop, but he’d made friends with all the camp followers. He talked about their weirdest quirks, their families, their rivalries, and the rumors going around about them.
Warcry got fed up with it pretty fast. “You’re talking about Ylef trash, big man.”
“They are mostly Ylef, but I wouldn’t say all of them are trash,” Rali said. “They’re just people. Same mix of good and bad as anywhere you go.”
“Same mix of murderers as any other,” Warcry muttered. “Except these prefer to murder humans over any other race they can get their hands on.”
The scratch and thud of boots on the boulders interrupted the afterschool special moment. The three of us tensed up, ready for an attack.
Kest hopped down beside me, and my stomach did a flip.
“Hake!” Her real fingers grazed my biceps over the Eight-Legged Dragon tattoo, making my skin tingle. She tested the hard knot of muscle there, and I might’ve flexed a little bit. The lace in her eyes darkened as she looked me up and down. “Wow, you really—”
With a glance at Warcry and her twin, she cut off abruptly, folding her fingers into the palm of her hand.
“You guys really are here,” she said in an I was talking about everybody the whole time, who says I wasn’t tone.
“Yeah, just got in,” I said, trying to remember that I shouldn’t hate Warcry or Rali. We had a lot bigger problems on our plate than not getting to make up for lost time with my girlfriend.
I picked up her hand and squeezed it, hoping she could tell how much I’d missed her.
She grinned that secretive smile at me.
Rali gestured at me and Warcry with his walking stick. “As you can see, Kest, I took the invading gangsters prisoner without resorting to violence. All it took was a little gossip. They were especially intrigued by Master Yenna’s rivalry with Master Jorrin, and all of Senior Smith’s tawdry dealings.”
“Are the Dragons attacking?” she asked. “I saw Sanya-ketsu on the way over. Are there more of you guys surrounding the base?”
“Wait,” I said. “You don’t sound surprised about Sanya at all.”
Kest shrugged. “She’s been around once before, but the way she ignored me, I assumed she was a plant, too.”
“She’s definitely a double agent, but we think her real loyalties are with the Technols.” I gave her the highlight reel version of what we’d told Rali,
